Cat on the Scent (2 page)

3

Blair glided down Route 250 toward Greenwood at 60 miles an hour. He was only in second gear and the tachometer wasn't even close to the red zone.

Harry couldn't believe the surge of power or the handling. They hit 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds. The balance of the car astounded her. The old farm Misfit blurred by, then Mirador (Misfit's big sister), then Blair downshifted, turned right, and headed back toward the Greenwood school, the road snaking and the car sweeping around each sharp curve without a shudder, a roll, or a skid.

“Don't you love it?” Blair laughed out loud.

She sighed. “Deep love.”

A short stretch of flat land beckoned. He smoothly shifted. The speedometer glided past 100, then Blair expertly down-shifted as a curve rolled off to the right.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Rick Shaw was rolling, too, right out of Sir H. Vane-Tempest's driveway. He hit the siren and snapped on the whirling lights.

“Damn,” Blair whispered.

“What's he doing out here in the boonies? He ought to be on Route 29.” Harry glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Is it Rick or Cynthia?” Blair squinted at the distant object, which was fast approaching.

“Rick. Cynthia doesn't wear her hat in the squad car.”

“That makes sense. Turn your head and the brim hits the window.”

“Rick's balding, remember.”

“There is that.” Blair half smiled as he pulled over. The Porsche stopped as smooth as silk. He lowered the window and reached in the side pocket of the door for the relevant papers as Rick lumbered up.

“As I live and breathe, Blair Bainbridge.” Rick bent over. “And our esteemed postmistress. License, please,” he sang out.

“Oh.” Blair fished around in his hip pocket, pulled out his crocodile wallet, and handed the license to Rick.

“Blair, do you have any idea how fast you were moving?”

“Uh—yes, I do.”

“Uh-huh. You know, of course, that the speed limit in the great state of Virginia is fifty-five miles per hour. Now I don't think that's the smartest law on the books, but I have to enforce it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did you get this vehicle?”

“This morning.”

“Uh-huh. Why don't you get out of the car a minute.”

In a show of sympathy, Harry unfastened her seat belt and got out, too.

“Lemme see the engine.”

Rick popped up the back, revealing a giant turbo covering the engine.

“That's a pain in the ass,” the sheriff grumbled.

“It's the turbo, chief, it forces air back in here,”—Blair pointed to the inlet side—“which boosts the horsepower to four hundred. Here's the delivery side.”

“Four hundred horsepower?” Rick whispered reverently.

Blair smiled, knowing the sheriff was hooked. “The intake, or flow, is split toward the left and right exhaust turbochargers. The air gets reunited, flows past the throttle, and goes into the cylinder heads in virtually direct sequence.” He paused, realizing he was getting too technical. “The pollution level falls below government requirements, which is a good thing. Drive a turbo and be environmentally responsible.”

“Uh-huh.” Rick ran his hand over the rear fender, which slightly resembled a horse's hindquarters, then ducked his head inside the driver's side. “Not much room in the back.”

“Big enough for Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter.” Harry finally said something.

“I'm surprised they aren't with you.” Rick pushed his hat back on his head. “Now in order to be fair here, I need to know a little more about this car. Can we all fit in?”

“Sure,” Blair said.

“Tell you what, guys, I'll stay with the squad car. You two roll on,” Harry said.

Rick furtively looked around. “Well—”

“No one will know a thing. If anyone stops, I'll say you're investigating a rustling call and I came along for the ride. You're out in the pasture.”

“Well—all right,” Rick agreed. “If H. Vane-Tempest happens to come by, don't say a word.”

“Got his nose out of joint again?” Harry casually asked.

Rick grunted. “He's a little different.”

“Different!” Harry giggled. “He's got more money than God and he acts like he
is
God.”

“He and Archie Ingram pester me with more calls than anyone else in the county, and this is a county full of nutcases.”

Archie Ingram, one of the county commissioners, a handsome man, courtly to women, was so violently opposed to most development schemes that he had attracted radical detractors and equally radical supporters.

“H. Vane is a big noise in the environmental group. I guess he and Archie have to work closely together.”

“Ideas are one thing. Temperament's another.” Rick hooked his thumb in his gun belt. “I predict those two can't stay on the same team for long.”

“Sheriff, would you like to drive?” Blair asked.

“Well—”

“Go on.”

Rick slipped behind the wheel.

Blair winked at Harry, then folded his six-foot-four-inch frame into the passenger side. “That button will push the seat back or forward. There you go. And you can raise or lower the seat, too.”

“Isn't that something?” Rick's seduction would be complete once he touched the accelerator. He reached to the right for the key.

“On the left.”

“That's weird.”

“A leftover from the great racing days when drivers had to sprint to their cars. If the ignition was on the left it gave them a split-second advantage. The driver could start the car and shift into gear simultaneously.”

“I'll be damned.” Rick turned the key. The pistons awakened like Sleeping Beauty.

Rick stalled out.

“Takes a while to get used to the clutch. Everything is much more sensitive than you or I are accustomed to—it's not so much about technology, it's about feel.”

“Yeah.” Rick engaged the clutch and touched the gas, then shot down the road.

Harry folded her arms across her chest, watching the car lurch into second. It would take Rick a few more tries.

She walked back to the squad car, sat down, and clicked on the two-way radio.

Milden Hall, the estate of Sir H. Vane-Tempest, was immediately behind her. The overlarge sign, emblazoned with a gold griffin on a bloodred field, swung slightly in the breeze.

Harry turned off the radio, swung her legs out, and closed the door. The day was too pleasant for sitting in the car. She walked back toward the sign. A car cruised around the corner, having turned off 250.

Harry waved and Susan Tucker pulled her Audi to the side of the road.

“What are you doing out here?”

Harry walked over to her best friend. “Joyriding. Blair bought a Porsche Turbo and as luck would have it, Rick Shaw came out of H. Vane's driveway just as we slowed down to eighty-something.”

“Where's Blair now? In jail?”

“No. He's letting Rick drive the Turbo.”

Susan laughed. “That's a good one.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“On my way to drop off books for Chris Middleton. I want to persuade him to give a talk at the high school for career day.”

Chris was a small-animals veterinarian, one of the best.

“Good idea.”

“And then I have to meet Mim, Her Royal Pain in the Ass, at the club. She's fussed up about this board meeting over the water supply. The county's been fighting about the reservoir so long I don't know why she still lets it get to her.”

“We've got to do something with the development in the northwest corner of the county. They need water.”

“Exactly, but the reservoir plan is already outdated and it hasn't been built yet.” Susan pouted for a minute. “Archie Ingram, as usual, wants to turn the clock back to 1890.”

“Make it 1840. Then he could own slaves.” Harry approved of conservation but Archie Ingram took it too far.

“Good one, Harry.” Susan smiled. “Oh, that reminds me, the battle reenactment at Oak Ridge—you have to be there.”

“No I don't.”

“Yes you do, because Ned needs camp followers.”

Ned was Susan's husband, a lawyer by trade and a reenactor in Civil War battles on weekends. The latter was becoming a passion.

“Susan, I hate that war stuff.”

“Living history.”

“I'll think about it.”

“Harry . . .” Susan lowered her voice.

“Susan . . .”

“You do it.”

“Takes two women to keep your husband happy these days.”

“That's right, girlfriend. And I even have your costume.”

“Susan, you're both nuts.”

“You'll look fetching in a bonnet.”

“I'm not wearing period clothes—period!”

Harry heard the distant, distinctive sound of the Porsche. “Push on, because Rick will be embarrassed if he gets back and finds you here. We don't want Blair to get a ticket.”

“Tell Blair that Ned expects him in the First Virginia.” That was the name of Ned's unit. The reenactors were fanatical about detail, down to the last button.

“I will.” Harry kissed her on the cheek. Susan kissed air in return, then drove away.

By the time the Porsche drove into view, Harry was back leaning against the squad car. A beaming Rick Shaw stayed behind the wheel.

“You deserve a car like that, Sheriff.”

“I never drove anything like that in my life,” Rick said, his voice full of wonder. He wouldn't get out of the car. He was like a child at Christmas, sitting under the tree, fondling his favorite present.

“I just had to have it.” Blair smiled. “Boys with toys, as Harry would say.”

“Hate to leave this baby.” Rick finally slid out from under the wheel. He walked alongside the front of the car, running his top finger over the curving, graceful lines. “Kind of like an egg on its side.”

“Yes.”

Rick opened the creaking door of the squad car. “Blair, stay inside the speed limit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harry, mum's the word.”

“Okay.” She smiled at Rick, whom she liked even though he chided her about being an amateur detective. His word was
busybody
.

He flicked on the radio.

“Car 1. Car 1.”

“Car 1,” Rick answered.

“Where you been, boss?” Deputy Cynthia Cooper's voice crackled.

“Sir H. Vane-Tempest's. His wife says Archie Ingram threatened her husband with bodily harm. H. pooh-poohs it. Said they simply had a disagreement over sensitive environmental issues.”

“Oh la!” Coop sang out.

“See you in ten. Over and out.” Rick started the motor and Harry backed away from his window. Rick winked at her, then pulled out, made a U-turn, and cruised back to 250.

Blair folded his arms across his muscled chest. “Man fell in love before my very eyes.”

“Doesn't everyone?” Harry enjoyed her double entendre, for Blair was stunning to the point of leaving women breathless—and a few men, too, for that matter.

“How about you, then?” He held open the driver's-side door, ushering her into the cockpit.

Harry sat still, inhaling the rich leather smell as she reached for the key on her left. Blair closed the passenger door behind him.

“Ready, Eddy?” She turned over the key.

“Shoot the goose, Bruce.”

“I never heard that.”

“Maybe it's shoot the juice.” Blair laughed.

She did and they roared into Greenwood, around the little town, and back to Crozet by every back mountain road she could remember.

When they finally pulled into her driveway, Tee Tucker burst through the animal door of the house, then pushed open the screen door, happy to see her mother.

Mrs. Murphy turned to Pewter, both of them reposing on the kitchen table, forbidden to them and therefore more appealing.
“That dog will never learn.”

Pewter tapped her skull with one extended claw.
“Dog brains.”

Mrs. Murphy jumped over to the window over the kitchen sink.
“They're coming inside. Off the table.”

Pewter waited until she heard the screen door slam before leaving the table.

“Hi, kids,” Harry greeted her cats, who ignored her.

“Make her suffer for leaving us here.”
Mrs. Murphy stalked into the living room.

Pewter, knowing some manner of food would be placed on the table, decided to be mildly friendly.

Harry spied the cat hair on the table and wiped it off with a wet dishrag. “You were on the table.”

“Was not,”
Mrs. Murphy called from the living room.

“Was too,”
Tucker tattled.

“Shut up, you little brownnose,”
Mrs. Murphy yelled at the dog.

“Blair, thank you again for letting me drive a dream.” She opened the refrigerator door, removing corn bread and butter. Not that she had made the corn bread; Miranda had given her a big pan of it Friday after they left work.

“Any time.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Susan drove by while I was waiting for you and the sheriff. She said Ned expects you in the First Virginia for reenactment at Oak Ridge.”

“I'll call him.”

“I didn't know you were into that battle stuff.”

“I'm not. They're short of bodies.”

“Isn't it expensive to get the gear?”

“Yeah, but I can't complain if I've just bought a Turbo, can I?” He laughed. “Some of these guys are a little extreme, but I'm looking forward to it.”

“Extreme?”
Mrs. Murphy sardonically replied as she walked back to the kitchen, pointedly not paying attention to Harry.
“They're a quart low.”

“I think it's fascinating.”
Tucker sat down on Blair's foot.

“You think anything's fascinating that has dead bodies in it.”

“Well, dogs eat carrion. That's what they're for, I guess.”
Pewter pressed against the refrigerator door.
“Nature's garbage collectors.”